so we're on the opposite side of encouraging people to retrofit these buildings. >> lawrence's point that we're going to have to at some point require people to do these upgrades -- >> yeah. >> just as we did for unreinforced masonry buildings, we all know sooner or later, ideally sooner, we're going to have to bring another set of buildings into the group where owners are required to do upgrades. we may have to revisit unreinforced masonry buildings and require them to be upgraded to a standard that will allow them to be reinhabited rather than torn down after an earthquake. >> right. the standard is collapse prevention you won't die and the bilgd won't collapse around you but it may not be repairable. >> yeah. we can look at action to the board of supervisors like we did with the unreinforced masonry to

require it, but you can look at changing the rebuilding -- you know, looking at state law and relaxes around crisis and how we can amend state law to require rental rent controlled units to be replaced on the market in those kind of cases. i mean there's many things you can do legislatively in different level. >> right. one of the interesting ideas that came up from the caps project that we're working on in terms of rebuilding was to amend the planning code which says if the building is destroyed by an act of god you can rebuild wit the same number of units foot print no open space and parking you're allowed to rebuild it the way it was originally built. it doesn't end up being a policy recommendation but you can only take advantage of that if you spent a certain amount of money in a good faith effort to retrofit and improve your building. then you could if your building

was in fact damaged to the point it had to be replaced use the act of god provision. that is sort of an incentive that may -- >> it is interesting on the soft story they're not that expense to retrofit. it's not a substantial amount of money. part of the problem is who pays for it? does the tenant even know? a lot of tenants don't know that their building is a collapse potential. a lot of the owners don't want to know that it's a collapse potential. and so there's an issue about making sure, first, that everyone has the knowledge of what their building is going to do in an earthquake. >> so you're talking about the ability for the owner to pass through the cost to the tenant possibly and that's a concern about that? >> that's one of the reasons why the owners theoretically don't

want to know. then they would have cukive knowledge and they would have to morally or legally fik it if they know it's a hazard. one of the reasons that caps was problematic was this issue of bringing up that we're going to be telling people that certain classes of building are going to be problems. and then do the tenants have a right to know? i mean you can't go into a gas station without -- and get gas without being told you're breathing in gas. when i go to dinner with my wife it drives her up the wall i'm looking around going lets hurry up and eat. i don't want to be here too long. [laughter] >> most engineers can walk around town and point out build that's have a low potential of surviving an earthquake. not a high potential of collapse, but a low potential of surviving. they're pretty much all

throughout the city. >> athen call into the classes that we can almost cat gorrize soft story buildings. >> unenforced, particularly. >> one of the things we can do as we move along to try to develop legislative mandate to fix stuff is try and limit it to those buildings of a certain type, multistory, soft story, corner building with an occupant with a number of units exceeding this on a certain type of soil, try to limit the scope, i think, just a proposal, theory, limit the scope, take care of them and move on to the next scope of building rather than cast a wide net. i'm worried about casting too wide a net what, do you think? >> it's important to let people know that the building department is out there telling you there are other hazardous buildings other than brick. the population just sees brick buildings as hazardous.

>> how do you think we should do that? >> this program itself would identify as a priority goal dealing with these buildings and say we are ear only dealing with the ones on poor soil but if your building looks like that, it could be potentially hazardous and there should be a discussion between the owners, the tenants and probably the other stakeholders because the other problem is when these buildings do collapse, they kill the people on the sidewalk and take out, particularly the ones in the richmond where there are grocery stores or stants, restaurants, they take take out neighborhood services. scbl we need to start educating the public. i think brick buildings people do know have a broader part of the general populous

understandss we're vulnerable. it's a big issue and older concrete buildings, i think,çó getting those two buildings types out and starting to educate people that these are vulnerable building types t concrete is more complicated, i know. >> yes,. >> but i think a soft story wood structure letting people begin to recognize those are vulnerable and all throughout the city -- >> you know, people see these signs, the fuel dispensing this may be hazardous you go in the parking lot and there's a sign and a brick building there's a sign. pretty soon we're admonished of the danger, we become -- >> (inaudible). >> absolutely. >> we should harness the momentum of this 100 year commemoration to make a legislative effort to make the city safer. the best place to start would be

to pick a class of buildings, probably soft story wood buildings, and require within some amount of time they be upgraded to some certain standard. we should not be incentives and encouragement but we should actually require it. i think the evidence is in that's what works. >> you know, i think you -- with the caps program and time line for that, i mean it fits right in to moving something out of that into the legislative action. but i think the requirement along with making money available that's low interest is probablyñi the -- it seemed to work with the unb program. you know, it's -- a lot of times people just don't have a conclude, so, you know, it -- especially in the soft story and the cement buildings it's an educational process that we have to deal with. >> i think money available. when i talk to people they always say, who's going to pay for this? the private building owner says

if the city is paying for this? if the city can say we're going to provide you with financing and allow you to do it, being able to answer that question -- >> yeah. we have to have a conversation about the right split between landlords and tenants and come up with something fair. >> how long does it take us to come up with the unb legislative? you were part of that. >> sb 547 which is the state senate bill that mandate thd first came out in 1985. prop a, which was the 300 million-dollar funding was in '89, so it was a four-year discussion between the state mandating it. but there was years of earlier discussion with kathleen harrington and the owners agreeing to the stakeholders saying we're going to do it. the nice thing about the unb ordinance it was pretty easy to identify if you were a unb.

the nonductile buildings, i'm not sure what holds them up. the corner soft story buildings, i've got my 14-year-old son now, he can now identify them because we drive around town and he goes, dads that one? yeah, do you see this and this? a 14-year-old can be trained to identify them. they're straight forward. >> do you think it's another four or six-year program to come up with legislation? >> to be honest, you have to get the board of supervisors on board on this and they need to realize that it's not just a landlord issue. it's a tenant issue, a people on the street, the neighborhood serving facilities. they are the book ends of the block. you might -- >> i haven't -- there's no opposition, except people that own some of the build. >> you also haven't gone through

the unb process at the state and local level. you have a group of people familiar with earthquakes and the, you know, sort of growing risks around them in this area. so i don't see that it would take that long. i think we have to wrap up the caps program and get some details in, facts and figures to establish it when we go before the board to get these kind of things passed. i mean, i think we should be thinking of it in terms of the action out of the caps program. >> the caps program is now coming up for 22 months completion and i think within two years we have a complete set of recommendations including trying to carve off some of the little chunks of building saying start with this one, here's the next one. >> and if there's interimmediate reports that can happen out of that and actually start of legislative action. >> that's a good idea. there's no reason to wait -- >> forward to and i think this

board, especially right now with all the education about the quakes would be a good time to do it. >> especially i would recommend there be an education window that goes on right now in wr there's no information available where we're clear what policies we want to enact taking advantage of the hype and publicity around the earthquake and bringing soft story into the spot light. my view is two levels of concern, one is the corner soft story which is vulnerable because of what would be going on in the dynamics of that block of structures. but then you have the soft stories within the block and when you look at how many of these structures that have actually been converted into kond condominiums. one of the issue assist

financing for the apartment build that's have landlord with income and rent control issues. then there's the other, which are the condominiums where there's a lot of turnover going over where ownership values and investments are high and while they may not be looking at an entire collapse, i think the inconvenience caused to them by what's going on in the block and utilities, keeping that structure more integrous would get homeowners and associations and the two-tenant type situation where you have two owners sharing one structure that's been cut into two, there probably is a lot of private activity that would go on in the higher value buildings turning over in the next few years. >> i mean, as i understand it too, those are exactly the buildings most at risk for fire

after the earthquake, so the whole issue and i think it was pointed out to me several occasion that is the fire lines, you know, mimic the landfill lines and we still have the issue of how are we going to respond to fire in these areas, especially since the power company is separate from, you know, our city emergency response. >> today it is. >> today, yeah. >> fire is a really big issue -- >> that went on the ballot like often, one more argument for public power. >> as part of the earthquake centennial week activities, there's going to be a demonstration burn of three small buildings, two of which are painted with fireproof paint. i'm sure you'll see it or video footage of it. there are things happening to help reduce fire spread, new technology is one of them.

it's terrific new technology but the fire department is working on ways of tapping the reserve water supply and all that. it is a serious problem, without a doubt. >> i think that's where the education component is critical because i believe there's a time which says wood frame buildings generally respond well, they're more flexible. >> to an earthquake. >> yeah. so what people are thinking about are those -- when engineer's are taking about wood frame structures they're talking about single family wood frame not the san francisco row house wood sfraim structures which have so many vulnerablibilities and the -- >> the garage door. >> yeah, they're elevated so they're not a wood frame flexible low-standing structure. lastly, the fire vellenerribility and getting out there and jeading the ading thee

population was half the size. so we have had a four to one reduction in the number of firemen in san francisco. now, technology's improved but we also now haveñi a large proportion of our firemen live in nebraska just çóñi -- nevadae where my brother live who is's a policeman. if there's an earthquake it will be a challenge retrieving those firemen. there should be encourages of housing policies or given choices because under state law you cannot mandate they live here but we should be encailging

them through our housing policy to live in the city. >> yeah. conversely it may be to our advantage to have some of our emergency services who will not be worried about their families being trapped in san francisco during a disaster who know their house and family will be taken care of if we make good arrangements for as we haveñi se of this in place, but probably needs to be looked at. if we make good arrangements for bringing them into the city. i think that is one of the lessons of katrina. >> yes. it was a pretty seriously bad lesson about getting people back in. >> getting back to the issue, the three parts of earthquake, hazard, mitigating hazard the response, how you put out fires. the rebuilding seems to be an issue most people haven't taken the -- theñi city hasn't taken a

lot of effort yet.ñi we need to data to know how we're going to respond. in fact, octavia boulevard just opened this year after 16 years later. recovery is a long, long process. i was thinking that, you know, it's hard to make decisions in the crisis mode after an earthquake, yet, you have tremendous emergency powers where you have the opportunitier to make decision that is might formally take years and years where you can make -- you can say here's what we're going to do. if you have strong leadership and clear goal. gabriel how do you think we're going to deal with the post earthquake recovery? >> part of it is having plans in place for anything that is going to beñi rebuilt differently than

it is now. not starting that conversation after the disaster, but starting itñi now. again, the vast majority of privately owned buildings we're going to want to allow people to rebuild what they have and encourage people to invest their money and rebuilding and we're not going to want to do some grand replanning. there may be some places where we want to make an exception and we want to, if things are completely destroyed, we want to thinkñi about buying outñi propy owners or doing something different prosecute the infrastructure. having that conversation is the first step. the other people is there can be an authority vacuum and that's what we see in new orleans which we actually see it at the world trade center as well, a wealthy center that does not have new

orleans poverty. they're still in disputes over who has authority to plan the rebuilding. i think, given everything we know about san francisco, we can expect that we're highly likely to have a big question over who has the authority to make decisions.çóñi ñr andñi clearing that up is one of the most important things we can do today to prepare for rebuilding after a disaster. >> have we seen any occasion that we're headed toward that? have you -- >> oh, no. this conversation has absolutely not even begun to happen yet. >> it's starting right now,ñi here. >> yeah. >> to things like the tunnels that people anticipate that probably wouldn't be practical right now. i mean, transit upgrades and, you know, sewage line upgrades and power lineñi upgrades, allf that is something that, you know, you would likely look at

during that time. but again, if you don't have some sort of group of people who are already talking about that, orleans is still relatively unfixed. >> you can do what happened in '06, just go build, we'll come back and see you in a couple years, go build. they just rebuilt rightñi over i smoldering ashes south of market or in new orleans where you're trying to figure out who's in charge and arguing over what to do with garbage. >> we're a process oriented city. if we wait, we will be involved in this process question for a long, long time i think, don't you? >> i think that's right. >> i want to point out, the city of los angeles took a major step fwhak theñi '80s and earlyçó '9n accepting up a recovery and reconstruction ordinance and

they sorted out as one of theçó larger ñicity bureauacy, but by going through the process of adopting it, there was a lot of institutional knowledge. departments head had been educated and they met together as a group. the city council formed the task force thatñi they talked about having. there were a number of pieces of that ordinance and the thinking behind the ordinance that were implemented after the northridge earthquake. it made it easier for the redevelopment agency to move ahead with the redevelopment authority actions which under california law you can actually do an emergency enactment of redevelopment powers. post disaster. and certainly that gives a city a lot of leverage to beginñi to

take action quickly,ñ funds through for reconstruction more quickly. but, you know, to go back to one of the points about the federal government. i think that'sñi a huge misconception that somehow the federal government is ready and able to respond to disasters. we -- >> especially in san francisco. oh, yeah, here we come. >> a democratic city -- >> one of the biggest challenges is it's difficult for the federal government to push money down through the existing federal to state toñiñi local pipelines. the way disaster funding is typically managed is through must be assistance which is to repair public facilities, the schools, theñi city facilities, the infrastructure and to repair it to the condition it was before the earthquakeñi orñiñr whateverñi disaster happened. so it's very difficult to do new things after the disaster because the whole infrastructure of the dpunding mechanisms is just to replace what was there. that's where redevelopment

powers because pormentd. you can put a poundery around an area and say, okay, we're going to actually mix this stuff up in here and use the money in a way that's going to better the entire neighborhood rather than just replace the pipe with the same pipe. it was too small. the neighborhood is twice thesir streets or whatever it is. so having powers in place, having to thought about how to structure government after disaster is really important because it allows you to open up and receive theçó moneyñr more. it's a struggle to get the money down fast enough andçó that's really where insurance is so important. it's a way money can come into individuals and people can become em pawrdñr more ñi -- empowered more quickly than waiting for their fee fema chec-

>> most people many the city were underininsured for earthquakes. that's one of those educational focuses people could really do to informal people about what their -- intoxilyzer room people about what their insurance is going to do for them in the case of -- >> in a city of san francisco where so many people are renters, one of the things is the rental insurance is still a pretty good deal whereas the homeowners policy is not very atrack ti. it's more attractive toñi retrot the soft story -- >> it's a three-year bay back through insurance. >> the renter's insurance doesn't give you a place to live, it just covers your stuff. >> >> it's still a decedent -- >> the impact of an earthquake on renters and people who are

covered under rent control is one ofçó the mostñiñi serious is of the housing picturet rental market is -- >> and -- >> (inaudible). >> if you take too long you're going to have problems. if you take too short, you're going to have problems. the best thing you can do is plan out now, orñi at least stat the discussion of what you're going to do, forçó example, in south mancht those areas that you know are going to get hammered or valencia street, which is an old lake, we know where the damage is most likely to occur -- >> we know the nature of the damage and where it's likely to occur but how long is the window of opportunity to do this going to be open? right now we have the earthquake sen ten natural and on the coat tails ofñr katrina issue, how lg before this takes second seat to some other natural -- >> we have to do it now and start talking about it.

you know, things likeñi talkingo the insurance companies about -- if we have a set of things that these soft story buildings could do, you know, that cost a few thousand dollars. if people do them, maybe they could get cheaper earthquake insurance. there's ways of bringing the insurance industry -- >> we should do it now. >> we should do it now. >> this november would be a great election to get a huge go bond to pay for the retrofitting ting the most important public buildings at risk. this is a time it will be ton voters mind and we can protect a lot of lives and invest in the ability of the government to function after a disaster. >> which is our goal, really our goal to get the city back functioning. >> we have a list of what the buildings are. the capital committee has been working for a long time on this. we could butt a bond on around thisçó particular issue. >> well let's get to work. i think we have our work cut out

for us. >> thank you. >> i want to thank you all for it's been very interesting. we've barely scratched the surface and we'll be talking about the issues for years to come. thank you for coming and we'll see you as part of the earthquake centennial proceeds down in the fountain tomorrowñi morning at 4:30 a.m., i hope. >> we will? >> we'll see you. >> thank you. ñiçó

>> we are approving as many parks as we can, you have a value garden and not too many can claim that and you have an

historic building that has been redone in a beautiful fashion and you have that beautiful outdoor ping-pong table and you have got the art commission involved and if you look at them, and we can particularly the gate as you came in, and that is extraordinary. and so these tiles, i am going to recommend that every park come and look at this park, because i think that the way that you have acknowledged donor iss really first class. >> it is nice to come and play and we have been driving by for literally a year. >> it is kind of nice. >> all of the people that are here. ♪

>> (cheering). (clapping)